Essentials from the world of pearls

Tag Archives: spica pearls

A wonderful first day out at the Asia World Expo gem fair, though the humidity (95% and more) is so sapping that I crawled to my room and individual aircon ridiculously early. So today’s blog will be a bit light on photos simply because at times it was hard to think through the soggy.

At these shows my first stop is now always the lovely ladies of the small company which produces akoya pearls from their one farm in Vietnam. They are always so welcoming and patient that it makes a lovely start to the day.

The first thing I want to look at are the little packets of their baroque pearls. Tiny packets of super metallic bue, pink, green and grey. Each one unique and surely an inspiration for any designers

Such amazing little gems

It is such fun sorting through the packets, marvelling at the rich colours and incredible lustre of these tiny gem pearls. Which one will excite a designer? There was a deep and rich royal blue one which I picked while it was still in the packet, scrabbling round in the tiny envelope to grasp it, it was so striking. And there was a lovely little drop too. You can tell that the colour is strong in these pearls because you can still see it clearly in the photo, in spite of the efforts of the fluorescent lights to wash out any trace of blue.

Next up the ladies showed me their few strands of natural colour akoya pearls. The strand I selected stood out, luminous metallic lustre and such beausiful colours.

The two darkest pearls are deep blue and deep green.

I also got some strands of tiny baroques, multicoloured. These pearls come from one farm in Vietnam. They are very ethically and sustainably produced

Believe it or not these are all natural colour akoya pearls natural colour akoya pearls

It doesn’t take long to write about it, but selecting these strands, chatting and settling such vital stuff as the price take well over an hour.

Next stop is always the main findings company. All the findings they currently have in stock are laid out in small packets and I’m soon rifling through hundreds of different clasps, earrings, and all sorts of silver. the table top is very wide so to reach the ones at the back I debated climbing right up there..but in the end just stretched. Not sure how that looked from the back!. Trying to work out what will be needed for our various couture and ready to wear lines, new ideas and one offs for customers, as well as for other designer makers is a bit of an exercise!. But having grabbed a good selection I know I can call back for a second browse..probably to buy the same new designs all over again. There is a lot of silver with very subtly inlaid CZ for just a little sparkle

There’s more black – anodised – silver than I expected: and less rose gold vermeil.

Finally – it’s now gone 2pm – I spend the rest of the time at one of the tahitian and south sea suppliers. One white SS and one gold SS strand and then a poke around in their lot bags for the surprise pairs and singles which will make great jewellery – including a matched pair of 15mm gold south sea buttons.One is very slighty darker than the other, but with a head in between the it certainly won’t be noticeable t9 any but a pearl expert. Result!

Opening day for the Gem show. Since I had the bulk of what I wanted already this was a nice day to browse and select just those few unusual items which make the trip even more worthwhile.

I’m not a huge akoya pearl person. There are too many people who specialise in a very specialised market where competition is fierce and often comes down to price…in which ccase the big expert boys can bulk buy and get better deals. At the other end it is all too easy to be sold some cheap shiny beads with a microns thick layer of nacre which will disappear within a year. That is sadly the end of the market where the discount sellers operate. Since buyers are almost invariably disappointed with their bargain pearls we can all end up tarnished with that same brush.

With pearls there really are no surprise bargains. Everyone really does know the price of what is being sold.

HOwever, I’ve been happy to dip a toe in the outskirts of the akoya market with some of the more unusual colours and baroque which I can get for a great price.

So I was really pleased to spot these few really strongly coloured (natural colours) rainbow greyish Vietnamese rounds from Spica.

Very colourful Vietnamese akoya pearls

A lot of browsing around the rows of Akoya stands and I found these lovely creamy akoya. Bigger, and each a different colour, one quite pinky and another almost buttermilk. Again natural colours

cream to buttermilk natural colour akoyas

Plenty of dyed grey, some black and many dyed gold akoya around as well as white white. Both pinked and unpinked. But no natural pastel multicoloureds this time.

Since by this time I had been walking up and down for about three hours I decided to sit down at the home of Edison pearls with my friend Cicie who set me to ‘play about’ with some really nice Edison rounds. I can’t help it, Put pearls in front of me and I make pairs. These were lush colours and besides finding a couple to add in to my March birthday present to me necklace I found the earring pair .. and a coupe more. Looking at Edison rounds. Bliss.

my earring pair. 13.5

These haven’t come out well, they are in fact a deep purple. With no trace of brown.

Finally. Having bemoaned the ear wax yellow of dyed south sea and freshwater pearls I spotted these fireballs. Haggle haggle with perhaps the wimpiest haggler I’ve ever met (I stopped before he paid me to take them away but only just) I got these two strands just for funness